Trust or not?

My wife and I own a house which is for sale. The house was previously owned by a good friend who gifted the property to us but with certain conditions.

The property was legally conveyed to us in 1996 along with an agreement prepared by solicitors stating along the lines of: “Artie shall gift the property to Soprano couple with the condition that the property cannot be sold without written permission of Artie and until that time Artie shall be entitled to live there”. Artie died in 2006 and the property has been rented out for eight years now.

I am trying to establish the chargeable gains tax (or any other tax) situation. Can exemption be claimed under TCGA 1992 s 225? If it can be argued that a trust was established presumably most of the gain might be exempt because my wife and I were...